Location
Larak Approach, near Abu Musa
Mosquito Fleet · Mission 1 · Larak Approach, near Abu Musa
OPERATIONAL ORDER 2026-11-19-LRK-007 Eyes only. Captain R. Tahami, Boghammar-7. An unidentified small vessel has been observed transiting our claimed waters near Abu Musa, course east-southeast, approximately 11 knots. Approach. Identify. Demonstrate presence. Do not engage unless engaged. Return to Larak by 0400 local. Standard patrol envelope applies. — Cmdr. Alavi, Larak Naval Station
Cockpit and net traffic recorded during the operation, timestamped from mission start.
Abu Musa sits at the eastern approach to the Strait of Hormuz, one of three islands — with the Greater and Lesser Tunbs — that Iranian forces occupied on 30 November 1971, two days before the United Arab Emirates formally became a state. A Memorandum of Understanding with the emirate of Sharjah left the island's sovereignty deliberately ambiguous and shared, an ambiguity Iran has steadily resolved in its own favor over five decades.
Today the island hosts Iranian military installations and an IRGC Navy presence that anchors the force's grip on the strait's eastern mouth. Routine coastal patrols out of bases like Larak and Abu Musa are the daily texture of that control: fast boats shadowing merchant traffic, logging foreign-flagged vessels, and asserting presence in waters the UAE still formally claims. The disputed islands remain one of the most durable flashpoints in Persian Gulf politics, cited in nearly every Gulf Cooperation Council communiqué since 1992.
A scene from the campaign's narrative, shown after a successful run. Mild spoilers.
The dock smells of diesel and something burnt that isn't diesel. Yusef is already smoking when Reza ties up.
"Clean run," Yusef says. He doesn't make it sound like a compliment.
Reza coils a line that doesn't need coiling. The eastern sky is starting to lighten. He has been awake for twenty hours.
"My first patrol," Yusef says, looking at the water, "I let an Iraqi trawler get inside two hundred meters before I noticed it. Cmdr. Hashemi said if I'd been any later he'd have shot me himself to save the trawler the trouble."
He flicks ash into the water.
"Get some sleep, Captain."